Letters

Refrigerator Habits I read your Jan/Feb ’06 editorial (“Milk, Melons, and Smaller Refrigerators,” p. 2) about refrigerators and agree with your sentiments that most people could probably get by with smaller refrigerators. Although people could buy smaller portions of things, in America it always seems that bigger is better, as well as cheaper. I have visited Europe many times and always like to visit the local grocery stores. I see the major difference between the American and European stores is the size of the portions. Pricing in America is always biased toward selling larger quantities of items.Take a stroll through any Costco, BJ’s,Wal- Mart, and other superstore and you will see frozen and refrigerated food sold in quantities unheard of in Europe. From a consumer standpoint, it is more cost-effective to purchase a large refrigerator (or multiple refrigerators) to take advantage of these quantity savings; they will vastly outweigh the incremental electricity bills. The key to successful energy-saving products is to give consumers what they want (that is, larger refrigerators), and use technology to deliver it....